


Slight Miscalculations

by laurus_nobilis



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Canon-Typical Technobabble, Canon-Typical Violence, Crossover, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-26
Updated: 2016-03-26
Packaged: 2018-05-29 03:33:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6357232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laurus_nobilis/pseuds/laurus_nobilis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Drax meets a Sontaran for business. It should be a simple mission. Except this particular Sontaran happens to come from Terra, and is very bad at sounding trustworthy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slight Miscalculations

**Author's Note:**

> Written for round 9 of Gen Prompt Bingo with the prompt "Primal Instincts".

He was supposed to meet with a Sontaran.

Rocket had thought it was a bad idea, which would have been clearer if he had not expressed it by saying "Sure, let's send Drax with a Sontaran! _That'll_ go well!". But the final consensus had been that it would, in fact, be a good plan. He was the least likely to get shot over a misunderstanding, or so they hoped.

So he was waiting for his contact, now, in a bar full of people from all kinds of planets, but probably with similar purposes. It was one of those places that Quill called "shady" regardless of the quality of their lighting. But for this particular one, the term fit. Drax had tried to find a shadowy corner, to avoid drawing attention to himelf as he had promised to do, but it turned out that the entire room was dim. More importantly, he didn't look out of place in there, and neither would a Sontaran. That was the entire reason they had chosen it.

Except the Sontaran in question didn't look at all as he had expected. He wasn't even in armour. Instead, he was wearing a black, strange-looking suit with an even stranger ornament around his wide neck. Everybody turned to stare at him at the same time. Drax rolled his eyes. He should have known something like this would happen. His life was never simple. And then, of course, it got even worse.

"Excuse me," the Sontaran said, loud and clear. "Is there a Drax the Destroyer here?"

Everyone turned to look at _him_ now. Perhaps he was going to get shot after all.

"The same Drax the Destroyer who has a bounty on his head?" said someone that Drax could not see. From the sound of his voice, he wasn't very near. Good. There would be time to react properly if a fight started. But he didn't move yet - that would be calling for more attention. For now, he just glared at everyone. It seemed to be making them hesitate to make the first move, at the very least.

"Well, I wouldn't know about _that_ ," said the Sontaran. "I have no idea of what is going on away from Earth. Or what is going on in this century."

That made no sense at all, but Drax didn't have the time to think about it. Someone _had_ finally started to move. They probably thought they were being sneaky, but it was hard to go unnoticed with that heighth and all those tentacles. The time had come to start flipping tables.

The first table served as a sort of barricade. The second one hit that suspicious guy with the tentacles right in the face. In the ensuing chaos, there was no need for a third. Drax made his way towards the Sontaran - slowly, as he had to stop to punch people every few moments. It was a very crowded bar.

"I thought we were here to talk," the Sontaran said, while he calmly knocked two of his opponents' heads together.

"So did I," he replied, stepping over a Krylorian's leg. "Until you told them I was Drax the Destroyer."

"Ah, yes, well. A slight miscalculation on my part. My name is Strax. I am here on business."

"I think we should try to be on business somewhere else."

Fortunately, Strax hadn't had the time to get more than a few steps into the bar, which meant he still had very good access to the door. It only took a few more punches for them to get out. Now, of course, they needed to get out of this entire planet, but that didn't look like it would be difficult either. Strax's ship was small, but it had room for two passengers, and he insisted on using it. There was no time to argue, so Drax simply got in. The ride he had used to arrive was not, after all, technically _his_. Abandoning it was not a big loss.

"What _is_ your business, then?" Drax asked him once they were safely away from orbit. "It had better be worth the trouble."

"I can assure you that it is." The Sontaran sounded quite confident about it. That was a good sign. Sontarans, just like Drax's own people, weren't very good at pretending. But this was an odd one, anyway, different from the ones that Drax had met so far and not only because of his clothing. He was clearly a good fighter - he had proved as much back there in the bar - but he was far less focused on constant war than his compatriots.

"And are you going to tell me what it is?"

"Yes, yes. Soon enough. But I have to _show_ you. Just let me set the controls on autopilot. What did you say the coordinates to your meeting point were?"

"I did not say anything about them."

"Well, say it now, then!"

Drax told him the coordinates. After that, it did not take long to set the ship onto the right course. Whatever Strax's flaws were when it came to entering bars full of dangerous people, at least he was a competent flyer. Drax could appreciate that. It turned out that, whatever it was that he had brought here to show, Strax had been carrying it on him all along. He pulled a small box from an inside pocket of his suit. He opened it with great care to reveal some kind of gadget, surrounded by several small pins. Drax didn't know much about technology, but to him, at least, it didn't look like anything out of the ordinary. It could have been a tool in any mechanic's toolbox. There was nothing flashy or outstanding about it.

Which, in his experience, probably meant that it was extremely dangerous.

"What is it?"

"An Intensifier. _The_ Intensifier, if you will. We aren't sure if there are more of its kind. Truth be told, we hope there aren't."

"All right. Next question," said Drax, who was already beginning to get tired of all this vague nonsense. "Who is 'we'?"

"The Paternoster Gang, of course. Madam Vastra, her wife Jenny and myself." Strax must have been expecting some kind of reaction from him, because he frowned at his continued silence. "Really? Doesn't ring any bells?"

"What do bells have to do with this?" he asked. "Is that what this machine is? A bell?"

"Oh, never mind that," sighed Strax. "I might as well start again. We are a team of detectives from nineteenth century Earth-- Terra, as you call it. And we take care of alien threats. Like this one."

He pointed at the box. Drax took a closer look at it, then closed his arms.

"I cannot tell what it does," he admitted. "Is it some kind of weapon?"

"Not exactly, but this artifact does have a dangerous effect, you see. It can make people ignore their restraint and give in to all their primal instincts. It... well, it intensifies them. Sometimes it's harmless, they just go to sleep or find something to eat, but there are times when it hits people's fight-or-flight reactions."

Drax stared at the Intensifier. Then at Strax.

"And you were carrying it with you."

"Of course I was! I couldn't just leave it here on the ship. What if it was stolen?" He pointed at a pin on his suit, similar to the ones on the box. "Besides, Madam Vastra gave me an inhibitor. I am not affected by it."

"You were carrying it with you when you stepped into a bar full of drunk miscreants," said Drax, very slowly. He was beginning to feel quite ready to give in to his primal instincts himself.

To his credit, Strax paused for a few seconds before he answered.

"Now that you put it that way, it might not have been the best idea," he admitted. "But! It works as a good example. You understand that it couldn't be possibly be safe on Terra, much less on that time period." 

"So you want to give it to us instead," Drax said. The Sontaran nodded.

"According to Madam Vastra, Star-Lord and his crew are the best option to keep it safe."

"Really? Does Madam Vastra know _anything_ about Star-Lord and his crew?"

"Ah, yes, that was my reaction exactly." Strax did not even try to hide his resigned look. "But she insisted. I have to admit, as much as I don't trust you lot, she does have a point. You will be able to deal with an Infinity Stone. Surely you can handle something like this."

"What do you mean 'will be'? That has already happened," asked Drax. He narrowed his eyes and gave the Sontaran a closer look. "Did someone at the bar hit your head too hard?"

"Of course not!" Strax huffed. "It has already happened for _you_ , but not for _us_. Time travel, you see. Gives one a headache."

"I don't have a headache. I'm just confused."

"It's a... ah, nevermind. They warned me about this too," Strax said, without bothering to explain what 'this' was. It didn't matter, however, because Drax didn't care. All he wanted to do was get this over with.

"Even if we accept, I cannot promise that this artifact will be safe," he told the Sontaran. "We can keep him away from others, yes. But I am not so sure that Rocket will not take it apart the very moment we stop looking at him."

"That's still better than keeping it on Terra," replied Strax. "And of course, I have inhibitors to leave with you, too. Maybe that will stop his curiosity."

"Maybe."

Or maybe not. Then again, it probably wasn't that much of a loss. If this matter had been in Drax's hands since the beginning, he would have simply destroyed the Intensifier long ago. In fact, he was starting to wonder why that Madam Vastra hadn't done it herself. It made this look suspiciously like a set-up.

"What?" asked Strax, who was now giving him a suspicious look of his own. Perhaps he wasn't as foolish as he looked.

"This looks like a set-up," he said. He had never been one to obscure what he thought.

"Why? Because we're giving you something useful? I told you that you would keep the inhibitors, too. This isn't a way to make you fight among yourselves."

"It is a way to make us keep something dangerous," said Drax. "Or to make us destroy it, instead of taking that responsibility yourselves. If it causes so much trouble that you don't want it on Terra, why is it still in one piece?"

"Because it _is_ useful. You could make your enemies fight among themselves!"

"So could you."

The Sontaran huffed, annoyed.

"Why are you being so stubborn? It's almost as if you _wanted_ to... Ooooh."

"What do you mean, 'oh'?"

"Well, you see," said Strax, "I forget a tiny detail. I should have given you your own inhibitor much earlier."

He took one of the pins in the box and threw it towards him. Drax caught it in the air, and it must have been activated already, because he immediately felt its effects on him. This happened in two different ways at the same time. One of the things he noticed was that he wasn't angry anymore, and didn't feel the urgent need to punch the Sontaran in the face. He must have been thinking more clearly now instead of feeling the 'fight' response so strongly. Of course, thinking more clearly also meant that he realized just how careless Strax had been with this. It was almost enough to make him angry all over again.

"That," he said, "was not very clever."

"I know," sighed Strax. "It happens sometimes."

"Sometimes?"

"... Often."

"I thought so."

"It's not _always_ like that," Strax defended himself. "Besides, it didn't end badly, now did it? I fulfilled my task here. No harm done."

"Except for those miscreants in the bar," said Drax. Now that he wasn't all that angry anymore, he could see the amusing side of the situation. He considered it for a moment longer, then nodded. "I will talk to Quill about this. But as I said, I cannot promise that we will decide to keep it instead of destroying it. We shall see."

"That is all we ask for," the Sontaran told him. "Not on Terra, and not in the wrong hands. This is good enough. Plus, I got a little fight out of it. It had been a while. I missed it."

"It was quite invigorating," Drax agreed. For the first time in what had felt like a very long day, he found himself smiling. "I enjoyed fighting at your side, Sontaran."

"So have I. It would be fun to that again some time. And also improbable. You know, time travel."

"Very improbable," he said, nodding. "But it was worth it while it lasted."

"It won't last much longer, it seems." Strax pointed at one of the control screens. "We will arrive to your meeting point soon. Come on, it's time to get ready."

He returned to the pilot's seat, preparing himself to resume manual control of the ship as soon as it was necessary. Drax also sat down again, once he had made sure that all of the remaining inhibitors were in the box with the Intensifier. With the way the Milano's crew behaved even under normal circumstances, a missing inhibitor was too much of a risk.

"There is still one I thing I don't understand," said Strax, while they made the last short part of their trip. "I lied, back there on the bar. I _do_ have some idea of what's going on. The thing is, Madam Vastra said that at this point in time, you and the rest of Star-Lord's team were on good terms with the Nova Corps. But there's still a bounty on your head. Did she get the timeline wrong, then?"

"No," he replied. "We _are_ on good terms with the Nova Corps. There are plenty of other people out there who still don't like us."

"Oh," the Sontaran said, looking thoughtful for a moment. Then he nodded. "I can see why."

Drax decided that he was going to take that as a compliment.


End file.
